Dwight Clark call helped pave way for Bo Pelini’s...

2of3Youngstown State head coach Bo Pelini spent three seasons as an assistant in San Francisco, where he learned from some of the best coaches in NFL history.Photo: Keith Srakocic / AP 2015

3of3Youngstown State head coach Bo Pelini.Photo: Youngstown State

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Twenty-six years ago, back when Bo Pelini wasn’t sure he wanted to be a football coach, he got a life-changing phone call.

It was received by his mom, who relayed this message to her 25-year-old son: Dwight Clark from the 49ers called and wants you to get back to him.

On Tuesday, Pelini, an assistant coach at Cardinal Mooney High in Youngstown in 1993, recalled his reaction to the news that the 49ers executive who had reached high for The Catch was trying to reach him.

Said Pelini: “I was like ‘What?’”

This week, the 49ers are practicing at Youngstown State where Pelini, a Youngstown native, is the head coach. Before returning to this northeast Ohio city in 2015, Pelini was the head coach for seven seasons at Nebraska, compiling a 66-27 record, and he previously was the defensive coordinator at NCAA bluebloods LSU and Oklahoma. In 2016, he led Youngstown State to the FCS national championship game.

Pelini is part of Youngstown’s rich history of football coaches. The list includes former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, a Youngstown native; former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie, a YSU graduate; and former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who led YSU to four Division I-AA national titles in the 1990s.

There’s a strong chance Pelini wouldn’t be in such company if not for two Youngstown natives who, like him, attended Cardinal Mooney: former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo and president Carmen Policy.

The Youngstown connection is why Clark made that call to Pelini, who had been a co-captain as a free safety at Ohio State. Pelini didn’t know DeBartolo and Policy at the time, but he knew Policy’s children.

Pelini spent three seasons, 1994 to 1996, with an NFL dynasty that provided a perfect platform to launch his career. In Pelini’s first season, the 49ers won their fifth Super Bowl with a roster that included five future Hall of Fame players (Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Deion Sanders, Rickey Jackson, Richard Dent). The head coach, George Seifert, and offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, are two of the 13 head coaches in NFL history to win multiple Super Bowls. In Pelini’s final two seasons, he learned from defensive coordinator Pete Carroll, one of 23 coaches to appear in multiple Super Bowls.

“They took me in, took me under their wing and taught me,” Pelini said. “And I was smart enough to listen. I remember Mike (Shanahan) told me before the Super Bowl, ‘Bo you’re a young coach. A year with the 49ers is an education. Two or three years is a master’s degree.’ He goes ‘I’ve been a lot of places in my career, but I didn’t really learn to coach until I was in this organization.’”

Pelini was hired as an entry-level scout, but he wasn’t the lowest on the totem pole when he arrived. That distinction might have belonged to the team’s ball boy, Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers’ head coach whose duties in 1994 were wide-ranging.

“I know (Pelini) from that time,” Shanahan said Wednesday. “I knew all the coach’s names because I had to pass their laundry out. It always had their name on their baggies. … Bo is a good guy, but I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

Said Pelini: “Kyle’s dad was maybe as good a football coach as I’ve ever been around. So it doesn’t surprise me that he’s accelerated through the ranks.”

Pelini did the same after the 49ers gave him his chance. Shortly after Pelini arrived, Seifert made him a quality control coach in the secondary. Pelini then was promoted to assistant secondary coach in his second season. He left the 49ers after the 1996 season because Carroll hired him when he became the Patriots’ head coach.

Pelini wasn’t committed to coaching when Clark called. He had recently earned his master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University and had nearly accepted an offer from Nike. He had already worked in the NFL, as an intern with the Browns, but that was in the public relations department.

However, there was no turning back once he joined the 49ers. In Pelini’s first game — a “Monday Night Football” contest against the Raiders — Rice broke the NFL record for career touchdowns. In the penultimate game of the 1994 season, the 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park.

“I remember coming out of that dugout at Candlestick for pregame, I was coming out with the defensive backs,” Pelini said. “The electricity in that stadium … it still puts tingles down my spine.”

Pelini earned a Super Bowl ring in his three seasons with the 49ers, but he received something even more valuable: a road map for a career that might have veered in another direction if not for Clark’s call.

“Sometimes you learn the right way or the wrong way,” Pelini said. “I learned the right way because I was in an absolutely class organization with class people. I thank God for the opportunity that I received.”

Eric Branch has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle since 2011 as the 49ers beat writer. Before that, he covered the 49ers for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in 2010. Since he began his career in journalism in 1997 in Logansport, Ind., he’s covered events ranging from archery tournaments to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.